HuffPost Boycott Crumbling

The National Writers Union has decided to end its involvement in the Huffington Post boycott that was launched after HuffPo was sold to AOL for $315 million last March–and still chose not to pay its bloggers. Instead, the union will throw its weight behind its own “Pay the Writers” campaign. Here’s what they want, via Romenesko.

* Freelance journalists working for for-profit, multi-million dollar online publications should get paid. * If you cover the news for anybody, you should get paid. * If you take on assignments, with an editor, you should get paid. * Occasional contributions by writers, educators or activists who are promoting a book or a cause could be unpaid and that fact should be acknowledged at the end of the article. * Frequent and regular contributors should be paid.

Fair enough. Although it might be tough to get much leverage for those demands without…you know…a boycott. But we’ll see.